Play Asteroids Video Game from 1979 on Windows 10

Have you ever wondered what type of video games those kids from 1979 were playing? They did not have Sony PlayStation or Microsoft XBox. They were limited to big bulky machines developed by Atari. One of the most popular games from 1979 was Asteroids in which you are flying a spaceship through an asteroid belt and you have to blast the asteroids to save yourself and find your way out. While the plot seems very interesting, the graphics of those times were terrible compared to even the earlier DOS games.

But the Asteroids game was so popular in the early 1980s that many magazines and newspapers of the time wrote lengthy articles about it. It was regularly featured in TV shows. There is a Healdsburg Tribune article from 1981 written by an Asteroids gamer named Brian Sumpter who was so good playing this game that he was kicked out of a store after he kept playing for more than nine hours on an Asteroids machine. The gamer also gives tips on how to play this game. You can read this article at https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=HTES19810610.2.3.

Asteroids Game

If you want to experience the same fun that the kids from 1979 were having while playing the Asteroids game, then you can download the same game ported to Windows by a developer called PJ Crossley. The game is around 2 MB in size and works on all versions of Windows. You can just double-click on the asteroids.exe file to launch the game.

Asteroids Game

The game can be controlled using the arrow keys to maneuver the spaceship and space bar to fire at the asteroids. As you hit any asteroid, it splits into multiple smaller asteroids. You can shoot these smaller asteroids as well and they will further divide into even smaller ones. Another thing that you will notice that the smaller asteroids move faster and are harder to target.

Asteroids Game

The game is too old to be enjoyable for the new generations, but it just gives you an idea about level of progress in the video games industry. It also gives you a feeling of surprise about how easily the older generations were pleased.

You can download the Asteroids game for Windows from http://pjsfreeware.synthasite.com/downloads-1.php.